THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



47 



cover more than five or six. To fulfill the demands of 

 the packing firm it would be necessary to harvest the 

 pea hay, thereby entailing more labor and expense to 

 the farmer and breeder. Pea-fed bacon has a streak 

 of firm, red lean where the corn-fed becon is all fat 

 and is more tender and better flavored. You may think 

 that this statement is one of a valley booster or enthu- 

 siast, as I did, until I learned that in the fall of 1906 

 a butcher in Albuquerque, N. M., finding he had a sur- 

 plus of San Luis Valley hogs, slaughtered a carload 

 and sent the pork to Los Angeles, where it was dis- 

 played and sora as "Colorado Pea- Fed Pork." It was so 

 immeasurably superior in quality, flavor and texture to 

 any pork ever obtained on the coast that the demand for 

 more was immediate. Within a month several large 

 livestock dealers on the Pacific coast had men in the 

 San Luis Valley buying pork. Trainload after train- 

 load were shipped alive the whole distance of more than 

 a thousand miles. It was found that the valley hog, 

 with his strong constitution, due to the high altitude, 

 pure air and healthful food, was far better able to 

 stand the journey than his corn-fed cousin. In less 

 than the whole season the Los Angeles market alone 

 took 110 cars of live hogs from the valley. 



Prof. H. M. Cottrell, head of the department of 

 animal husbandry in the State Agricultural College of 

 Colorado, made a trip through the valley in the fall of 

 1906. On the completion of his tour he had the fol- 

 lowing to say: 



"With conditions so favorable, there should be 

 raised and marketed every year in the valley a million 

 hogs and this could be done and large numbers of calves 

 and lambs be also fed. 



"If the actual results that can be obtained in the 

 valley in making gains cheaply with highest quality of 

 meat were generally known to stock feeders in the corn 

 belt, it would be but a short time until the valley would 

 be settled to its full capacity with experienced stock- 

 men. . 



"I secured estimates from a number of conserva- 

 tive men who are feeding and as near as they could 

 judge from the weights of their stock when put on feed 

 and when marketed, they are securing from 90 to 160 

 pounds of gain on lambs from an acre of feed and about 

 100 pounds of pork per acre of feed from the hogs 

 that clean up after the lambs. Where hogs are fed 

 alone the estimates are 400 to 500 pounds of pork per 

 acre of feed. 



"Most of the peas are raised in the valley for not 

 to exceed $1.50 per acre for all expenses up to the time 

 the stock fs turned in and the only expense incurred in 

 feeding is to water, salt and herd the animals they 

 gather the crop. 



"The San Luis valley has about the same tillable 

 area as Denmark. Denmark sells annually to England 

 alone bacon worth $18,000,000 and besides keeps two 

 million head of cattle. The field peas and barley of the 

 San Luis valley produce the choicest quality of bacon 

 and the valley has the advantage over Denmark of being 

 under irrigation." 



Professor Cottrell has groat faith in the fattening 

 capacity of peas for calves and is urging the adoption 

 of such measures. Of this he says: 



"I believe that baby beef can be produced very 

 profitably in the valley, putting calves on full feed at 

 weaning time and marketing them fat in May and June 

 of the following season. I would recommend that 



several cars be put on feed this season and accurate 

 accounts of the feeding operations be kept." 



At Romeo, on the line of the Denver & Rio Grande 

 railway, the state agricultural college is establishing 

 a model hog farm and it can be conservatively predicted 

 that within a few years the San Luis valley pea-fed hog 

 will have almost a world-wide reputation. I believe that 



"Mortgage Raisers." 



before long hog raising will be the prevailing industry 

 in the valley. There are several reasons for this. One 

 is the cheapness of the raising and the consequent low 

 cost of labor. Another is that no hog cholera can be 

 prevalent in this altitude and that with proper care 

 there will be no plague of any kind. There has been 



f*^ ' \ 



Lambs in Pea Field. 



some trouble among a few farmers, but it has been 

 mostly attributable to filth and lack of proper care. It 

 is related of one of the wealthy farmers that his hogs 

 were dying, the epidemic, whatever it was, seeming to 

 be especially fatal to young pigs. He called upon an 

 old friend, an inmate of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home 

 near Monte Vista, and asked him to suggest some means 



